Paper_jam

Fix it! Fixit fixit fixit. Fix. It.

One trivial thing that makes me surly is major, brick-and-mortar retailers which have a website that can't even tell me if a specific product is in stock at a given physical store location. Why would you not use your website to leverage and support sales at your own stores? If I wanted to order online and wait, I'd use Amazon. Sometimes I need something FAST and I just need to know, before I drive all over town, whether or not it's in stock. Yet (some) companies still make it a total pain in the ass to find this out. I swear, some companies have their online shit set up like it's designed to compete with their own brick and mortar assets, rather than complement them.

These look pretty baller:

When replacing an old water heater In the Austin city limits, do they make you also put in an expansion tank now? I'm looking at reviews on new water heaters and it seems like the modern computer-controlled valves/burners are a PITA that shut everything down if there's so much as a mousefart of a problem or variable out of range...

Memphis uniform looks like knockoff Spider-Man pajamas. Salt Lake : "while the team logo resembles a car hood reflecting the city’s fastest and most famous cars." Seriously?

Unbelievable crash in Formula 3 Macau race. No fatalities but daaaaamn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHZWJkcBz8U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FCeMau0heY

I hate that damn Buc-ee's on 183 at I-10. The traffic from that monstrosity fucks up the whole interchange. There's like 4 stoplights there now, I think you used to be able to cruise through there and there was only a flashing yellow light.

Check out reviews/recommendations at www.rtings.com and www.avsforum.com In that price range (or a bit over) I'd say that the Sony x900F is very popular, but the 65" will be above your budget. The 55" is right about $1200 now, probably will be some good Black Friday sales. I'd also suggest you consider the Samsung NU8000, which is a bit cheaper than the Sony. You can find that in a 65" size for around $1200. TCL and Vizio make some popular models with a strong feature set at lower prices, but IMHO also prone to more issues. You didn't ask about viewing angles, which may change the situation. All of the above are VA-based LCD's which will tend to wash out some if you are watching from a position of more than 20-30 degrees off center. IPS models have slightly wider viewing angles but then you get different issues with the picture quality. (Note that I don't own any of these, I'm sticking with an old Panasonic plasma until it breaks or until OLED tech gets cheaper.)

There was a huge political fight 8-10 years ago over whether to build one of those treatment plants. I guess it turns out that we did need it. As to the current crisis, I don't see this problem so much as an issue of capacity, as one where the design parameters of the current plants were set based on the normally-decent-quality of the intake water from Lake Austin/Travis. When I toured the Davis plant, although it was many years ago, and I was surprised how "little" treatment was actually needed. Basically just a couple of big clarifying basins and some filters, as I recall (plus the chlorination). But if the intake water is loaded with fine solids, it takes longer for those clarifiers to settle the solids out, and I'm sure the flow is quickly reduced as stuff builds up in the filters. Hence the reduction in clean water output.

"Depending on the size of the breach, a wall of water will be blasted out at speeds in excess of 1,000 MPH and could still be traveling at 50 MPH by the time it reaches Austin. In the Teton Dam failure, initial wave velocity was 1,090 MPH (1,960 ft/s) and the wave was 120 ft tall. The St. Francis Dam failure was an instantaneous failure and released an initial wave of water at 2,018 MPH (2,960 ft/s). These velocities are the result of massive amounts of pressure being created by the weight of the water."

When The Office first ran, I kind of identified with Halpert because he was smart and funny. Watching it again years later, drives home that Jim, while not a bad guy, maybe has a little too high an opinion of himself. (Which I can understand, when you work with Michael Scott and guys like Kevin and Phyllis, etc.) But it does make me look at Jim in a different light. The phone-call scene where Jim unloads on Pam for not recording their kid or something always makes me want to kick Jim's ass. My favorite characters are definitely Pam and Dwight.

This story is like a dagger in the heart. It's a searing indictment of the state of child neglect and abuse in America. I hope the defense doesn't throw up a lot of smoke and mirrors because with the stabbing angle it seems like it's outside the range of an insanity plea.

If you wait 'til after Texas loses a bowl game you can pick up that merchandise at a bitchin' discount. I bought a 1991 Cotton Bowl t-shirt for like $2-3 the day after.

I remember hearing the roommate-suicide = 4.0 GPA one, the secret tunnels, the Tower/Rice/Owl thing. I also remember hearing the bathtub ice/kidney/note thing a lot. This was early 90s. I think I recall an employee was actually busted at Player's for selling weed from the take-out window.

As a public service I am posting this notice to the general driving public in the Austin metro area: Starting tomorrow, October 4, 2018, at 7:00 am, E. Parmer Lane between Interstate 35 and Highway 290, will be closed indefinitely by order of me until further notice. Do not attempt to drive on this portion of Parmer Ln, even (especially) if the road appears to be open. It is closed and anything you see which suggests otherwise is a hallucination or optical illusion. Any attempt to drive on said portion of closed road may lead to prosecution and/or risk of personal injury. Persons in North Austin wishing to access SH 130 or the city of Manor should do so via eastbound Hwy 290 or by Howard Ln. This closure is necessary because holy shit what the fuck happened to this road it used to be a nice country lane and now I have to wait 2+ cycles through these goddamn stoplights which weren't even here a few years ago

Today is supposed to be the first nationwide test.

I know it's a TV/movie thread, but If we're allowed to bitch about radio ads here, for me it's the Toyota ad in which a girl talks about how all the safety bullshit on the car will protect them from monsters and UFOs. Good parenting, folks--your kid sounds about 12 years old, but still believes in that shit. Oh, and those "it's a crime to pay more than a dime" Mitsubishi dealer ads.

Random example--Parmer Lane between I-35 and Mopac

I watched it tonight on DirecTV. My initial DirectV order email from a year ago says I have the "Ultimate" package. I can't remember if I added anything to that or not. The way they shuffle tiers and packages around, who knows what you really get. Edit: their current channel listings for packages show LHN to not be included in Ultimate now. I'll be pissed if they take it away.

Texas - 25 Tulsa - 5 yeah it's a weird score

Oh, life finds a way. One trait I'm running into a lot lately are drivers ahead of me who, when approaching a stale green light, slow down just enough to make sure they will be the last car to get through the yellow, while blocking me out. I swear it is fucking deliberate. Same goes for the case where I'm stuck in a line of cars stopped at a red light, and the shithead in front of me accelerates real slow when the light turns green; so they can be the last car through before it goes red again.

Kinda soon for a remake of The Strain but w/e.

Was kinda expecting the old joke about painting the porch/porsche.

The KXAN article up now says she was on video actually inside the building, and exited on the rear side. You'd think if she was feeling ill that she'd stay inside or ask for help, but ... who knows.